Stick a fork in it. Pull the plug. Give this vanity project the heave-ho.

Things are so bad downtown even many city councillors now want to bang the curtain-dropping gong on this gong show.

They want to call it a day and turn out the lights on city hall’s feeble, fumbling stagger towards a bid for the 2026 Winter Olympics.

Not long ago, six councillors had enough and voted to bury the bid. They failed to carry the day. They needed eight votes.

Now Druh Farrell figures the eight votes are there for city hall’s Olympic brainwave to finally bite the dust.

“I have every indication this project no longer has majority support. I get the impression members of council are changing their minds. I believe they’re ready to cut bait,” says Druh.

Boy, many of them do seem ready. A gabfest of 10 councillors voted 9-1 to hold another Yes or No vote at Monday’s city council drone-a-thon.

Druh says she was open to being convinced but the more she sees, the more she’s convinced the Olympic bid is a bad idea.

Druh is upset, seeing a clear bias for the Olympic bid when a plan to ask what Calgarians think is pitched to city politicians.

“I just don’t feel confident we’re going to be looking at this bid through the cold light of day.”

It is no different Tuesday than it usually is when it comes to city hall talking about how they’ll handle Calgarians. City hall doesn’t want to know what you think.

You are a tax-paying inconvenience, an irritation, a hoop they have to jump through or stickhandle around on their way to getting what they want.

They don’t see their job as giving you the facts and letting you decide. Their job is selling you. In this case, they’re selling you the Olympics.

So it’s no surprise city hacks are hanging all over this project. It’s no shocker Olympic cheerleaders are very much part of the scene.

Those familiar with the script don’t bat an eye when some dude takes to the microphone preaching to council about the virtues of the Olympics while a paper pusher talks about developing a communications plan allowing them “to talk to the masses.”

Who the hell these days uses the handle “masses” in talking about the people who pay the bills?

City brass comes clean — once. They admit if the provincial government hadn’t put its foot down the city higher-ups wouldn’t have recommended a plebiscite vote of the people.

Nenshi makes his plea. In his words, he doesn’t want to strangle the Olympic bid before it’s born.

The mayor admits there have been many dropped balls, missteps and incorrect reports. He’s frustrated but he doesn’t want the dream to die just yet.

“I think it would be a real shame for council not to try to pull this thing out of the ditch,” says Nenshi.

“This is not a good time to take the off-ramp. Give us until June to see the money and we can take the off-ramp if the money doesn’t work.”

Nenshi says he won’t shed a tear over the Olympics either way. I think he will.

Rookie councillor Jeromy Farkas encourages a whole bunch of people to come down to council. They don’t get to speak Tuesday but they will get a chance at a future council gabfest if the Olympic bid isn’t squashed first.

Farkas gets into a little verbal jousting with a clearly unamused Nenshi and he rails against closed-door meetings, special interests and politicians driving the bus on the Olympics.

Farkas figures the taxpayers being thrown under the bus deserve to be heard.

But will Calgarians be heard if city hall has their hands all over the information going out and will likely spin a lot of souls to a Yes on the bid?

Jeff Davison, another first-term councillor, points to a very top-down approach where “the public side has been lacking.”

Jyoti Gondek, yet another council newcomer, is very hesitant to have anything to do with the International Olympic Committee. She is not alone.

And Big Red, a.k.a. veteran councillor Diane Colley-Urquhart, once a Yes to the Olympics, has had her confidence rattled watching this movie.

A citizen sends an e-mail. He was at city council sitting behind the city brass bobbleheads as they nodded while hearing the Olympic baloney from a presenter.

“Beam me up Scotty,” he writes. “I accidentally landed in a nuthouse.”

See, I’m not the only one who thinks the inmates are running the asylum.

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